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Is Little Red Riding Hood afraid of her grandmother? Cognitive vs. emotional response to a false belief
Author(s) -
Bradmetz Joel,
Schneider Roland
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1348/026151099165438
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , false belief , theory of mind , cognition , dissociation (chemistry) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , autonomy , social psychology , chemistry , neuroscience , political science , law
The essentials of a theory of mind are generally considered to be acquired around 4 years of age when the child succeeds in the standard ‘Maxi task’ (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). However, rational thought is not attained before 7‐8 years of age in other domains of cognitive development. This study demonstrates that the mastery of mental state attribution using logical criteria is not reached before age 7‐8 years when several assessments of a belief need to be coordinated. This is revealed by the dissociation between the cognitive and emotional assessments of a false belief which yield contradictory responses in most of the children who succeed on the standard task. The results were replicated in five experiments with a total of 254 children aged 3‐8 years. The analysis of this decalage focuses on the autonomy of emotional attributions and the semi‐mental and semi‐behavioural structure of belief understanding implied in the standard task. An increase in processing capacity leads to a rational concept of belief around 7‐8 years: this concept is called here ‘third‐person', in opposition to ‘second‐person’ which involves only an initial differentiation from the first‐person point of view. Second‐person depends on an opposition between the self and the other in terms of a single, modular evaluation of belief, whereas third‐person depends on an integration among various assessments and provides a consistent and isotropic concept of belief.